I pulled this old book out of the book pile. I am not sure where I bought it. Wikipedia says that it was an influence on H.P. Lovecraft. The King in Yellow was published in 1895. It is, supposedly a seminal work in horror having an influence on modern horror writers like Stephen King and Robert Bloch in addition to Lovecraft.

Horror or shock fiction is not usually my cup of tea. Most modern amateur horror that I see involves serial murderers, zombies, vampires or other similar and overused cliches. I find this kind of fiction distasteful. Relying on a cliche is hardly a good idea when surprise is so often a part of horror.

The King in Yellow uses a mood of disgust and nausea in order to invoke its horror. The themes, including suicide, antisemitism, racism, physical deformity and mental disease are just repulsive. Reading for pleasure seems to out of the question. In the absence of anything else, I will read a little more on the way home, but it goes right back in the book pile (if I don’t use its pages to start fires this winter). Historically, just because of the book’s influence, you may try to read it, but the only connection to Lovecraft was that he was highly critical of the author and the book. HPL also borrowed a few place names from it.

My great-great-grandfather’s name was Robert W. Chambers, but after checking with my mother, we are fairly certain that he was not this Robert W. Chambers – thank goodness.